In this informative and detailed [url=http://xprize.org/messageboard/viewtopic.php?p=3259#3259
]article[/url] about Centennial Challenges, MSNBC.com's Alan Boyle talks about what happens when NASA employees and alt.spacers meet in the same room:
The prize program's manager, Brant Sponberg, got a foretaste of the skepticism as well as the excitement two weeks ago when he addressed the Space Access '04 conference in Phoenix. The gathering caters to just the kind of people the Centennial Challenges are aimed at encouraging: rocket enthusiasts who are working far from the halls of power, on projects taking shape in hangars, garages or just on drawing boards.

As Sponberg spoke, he was peppered with questions and even a few complaints — so much so that the moderator had to admonish the crowd to settle down. But by the time he was done, he had won applause as well, and was surrounded afterward by a throng of would-be prize competitors...

Rick Tumlinson, founder of the Space Frontier Foundation, has long championed giving private enterprise more of a free hand in space exploration. In fact, he believes that NASA should get out of the orbital transportation business and open up the bidding for space travel contracts. However, he worries that the Centennial Challenges could fall victim to old-style NASA-think...

"It's a magnificent thought, and is certainly a wonderful psychological shift on the part of some well-meaning people," Tumlinson said. "But I think the system itself might snuff out any real usefulness. I'm not going to predict that, but that's what we have to be careful about. That's what we have to protect the prizes from."